Charitable Organizations Just Lack Right Ticket For Collecting Money

Last year's United Way goal for Lake and Sumter counties was $237,000. That's only about $1.75 cents for each resident in the two counties, yet officials still came up short.

The goal for a new YMCA complex in the Golden Triangle is $1 million. After a year of intense work, volunteers still are knocking on doors for every nickel they can get.

Needless to say, raising money for worthy causes is one tough job in Lake County.

Yet during a single week in mid-January, Lake County residents, if they were average, cheerfully doled out $1,051,650 for -- you guessed it -- lottery tickets.

State lottery officials have not compiled figures other than for Week One of the lottery, which began Jan. 12. When those figures were released, lottery director Rebecca Paul said each person in Florida -- man, woman and child -- had spent an average of $7.79 during the first seven days.

In Lake, that could have translated to more than a million bucks. So much for the notion that residents don't have enough disposable income to support adequately charitable causes.

The reason for this one-week spending frenzy is absurdly simple. Giving to organizations such as the United Way and the YMCA only warms your heart -- playing the lottery can warm your wallet.

Even though the odds are stacked heavily against you, there's always a chance that underneath the metallic gloss of that next lottery ticket is a combination of names and numbers that will give you $25, $50, $5,000, or even $1 million.

I sympathize with the volunteers who have struggled each year to meet United Way's modest goal of tending to the area's homeless, hungry and abused. In recent years, they have come up short more often than not. The new YMCA facility has been in the planning stages for three years now, and it took thousands of volunteer manhours to make it a reality.

Yet the Florida Lottery can slip into Lake County and collect a quick million in a scant seven days.

Wake up, Lake County do-gooders. The state lottery has shown you the way to the promised land. To directors of the United Way, the Y and any other charitable organization, I say forget those tedious door-to-door solicitations. Forget those long hours on the telephone. Forget trying to convince people that the pocket change they spare you will do an enormous amount of good.

You can have money rolling into your cause by starting your own lottery. If the state can do it, why can't you? Think of it. By Florida Lottery standards, the Y could have wrapped up its building campaign -- including the payouts -- in less than two weeks. It would have taken the United Way only three or four days to meet its annual goal.

If the idea of giving away cash to get cash is somewhat distasteful to those of you running charity organizations, you always could give away prizes instead.

Of course there's one prize that absolutely would guarantee brisk sales. You guessed it -- $500 or $1,000 worth of Florida Lottery tickets.